Date- 3 April 2321
Time- 20:44
Location- Sun Blossom City, Card Creationist Association, Auction house, West Wing Hall
“Agatha, I get that you hate the feeling of being kept in the dark about many things. That doesn’t mean that you can just threaten me for answers but considering our situation I am willing to compromise. But you have to understand that what you are asking me to reveal to you are considered state secrets, which means I can be sentenced for revealing the information you are asking for. Therefore, if we are going to do this we will have to be smart about this. Instead of revealing the secrets, how about I guide you to them? This way I will have the plausibility to deny everything that transpires here. Can you agree to that?” I asked Agatha.
“For someone who acts tough, you suddenly seem to worry a lot about the southern royal family’s rules,” Agatha did not seem to be convinced by my words.
“Hey, no matter what, the Southern region is my home. And I would like to have a home to come back to. You understand right,” I said, as I felt Agatha’s intent gaze on me from my shadows before she agreed to my proposal, “Fine, I will hear what you have to say, and if I like what you say then we have a deal.”
“Good,” I nodded my head appreciating Agatha’s compromise, and continued saying, “So this is how we will do this, I will ask you a bunch of connected questions and you will have to guess who or what these questions signify. If you get it wrong I will tell you but if you get it right I will not deny that you were not wrong. I call it the guessing game. All you have to do is guess, got it?”
“Yea, yea, I get it, will you start already,” Agatha said impatiently.
“Okay, I will get to it. Agatha here is your first question, name one creature that can fight like a card apprentice and used to be a card apprentice. I repeat, name one creature that can fight like a card apprentice and used to be a card apprentice,” hearing the boy’s question, Agatha’s brows frowned. The answer to this question was obvious but Agatha felt that it would not be that simple so she decided to wait for the second question, “Next question, please.”
“Agatha, your next question is, name a creature that can no longer feel pain or other emotions but used to feel pain and other emotions at a certain point of its life. I repeat, name a creature that can no longer feel pain or other emotions but used to feel pain and other emotions at a certain point of its life,” I felt that my first question could not be simpler yet Agatha asked me for a second question so I gave her the second question.
“Third question, please,” Agatha had a feeling that the answer she had in her mind was the right one but she denied the possibility of that due to the bizarreness surrounding it and asked for another question.
“Agatha, your next question is, name a creature that can recover at an astonishing pace and no longer feel exhaustion. I repeat, name a creature that can recover at an astonishing pace and no longer feel exhaustion,” I gave Agatha the third question considering whether to make my questions simpler.
“Fourth question, please.”
“Agatha, you can guess more than once, so before asking for the next question just state your guess if you are right I will not deny the fact that your guess could be wrong. You get it, right?” I felt that Agatha was not clear on the rules or did not understand the guessing game.
“Oh, I see,” saying that Agatha went silent.
“So your guess is?” I asked Agatha.
“I guess, a Lich. It used to be a card apprentice so it can fight like one. It feels no pain or other emotions but it used to when it was a card apprentice. Unless their life vessel is destroyed they keep recovering at an incredible pace and never get exhausted. Is my guess correct?” Agatha guessed, pointing out that her answer fits all the questions.
“I am not denying that your answer is not wrong,” I said
“So, my guess was correct,” Agatha cheered and got to thinking how a Lich was connected to what she asked about.
“Now that I have answered your question. In case the Circle’s semi-demigods do show up, will you let me see them before we retreat?” I said, trying to help Agatha connect the dots between the Circle’s semi-demigods and the creature Lich that she guessed by playing the guessing game.
Recalling where the argument started, Agatha felt a light bulb turn on in her head and mentally yelled, “You are saying that the semi-demigods from the Circle are Lich.”
“Ah, too loud,” I complained to Agatha about controlling her mental voice.
“Sorry, I got carried away. Won’t happen again,” Agatha apologized.
“Once again, I am not saying anything. You are the one who thought of it all by yourself,” I said, reminding Agatha of what we had agreed upon.
“Yes, yes, you did not tell me anything. I was the one who thought of it all by myself,” I could feel Agatha rolling her eyes at me as she said this.
“Yes, it’s not me, it is you who came up with that. Remember that,” I asserted.
“Sure, but all of this sounds like some outlandish theory with no evidence to back it up. I am not sure about this because if the Circle’s semi-demigods were, indeed Lich disguised as semi-demigods then how did they manage to get past the perception of Demigods stationed at the way beyond,” Agatha said, she did not want to conclude without any evidence to back it up.
“I don’t know how they managed to fool the demigod’s perception but evidence, really? Earlier you wanted answers and now you want evidence. Why don’t you just ask me to raid the entire top confidential secret archive of the southern royal family, while you are at it?” I yelled at Agatha trying to press her to blindly trust the conclusion she came up with. Wasn’t that the point of this dance?
The reason I promised Agatha that I will help guide her to the answer, instead of answering her what I know was not because I was worried about being sentenced by the southern royal family. The real reason was it would be harder to get Agatha to believe in my words and manipulate her if I just told her everything. So instead I decided to have Agatha reach the answers so it will not be hard for her to believe them when she starts to connect the dots.
“Wyatt, I know what you mean but…” before Agatha could finish I interrupted her adding, “Fine, you need evidence right? You had the evidence long ago. You just did not know how to interpret it.
Remember the story you told me about half a dozen semi-demigods from the Circle defeating 310 monsters of the same rank without even breaking a sweat and not a single scratch to show from the fight?
Imagine if half a dozen Semi-demigod Lich were in the same situation, would the result be any different?”
Being interrupted by the boy Agatha frowned but then what he said made sense to her. Because she could not bring herself to believe that six card apprentices were able to survive the ambush of 310 monsters of the same rank. This was just too unbelievable for her but Agatha also did not want to believe what the 6 card semi-demigods were able to do was because they were Lich as this could easily be interpreted as her calling her opponent a cheat instead of agreeing with her incompetence.
Seeing Agatha struggling to reach a conclusion I said, “You know my origin card is called Aura sight. It helps me see the aura of everything. Each thing’s aura is different but closely related to their kind. For example, take humans, all humans have a distinct aura but if something else is disguised as a human, I will be able to tell the difference because even though all our auras are distinctive they are closely related. Kind of like our appearance. One can always tell us apart but collectively we all are the same. Where I am getting at with this is that I can-“
Agatha completed my sentence by adding, “You can detect whether the semi-demigods from the Circle are Lich disguised as card apprentices. Is that the reason why you made that specific but odd condition to look at the semi-demigods from the Circle before we retreat if they show up?”
“So you understand,” I said with a calm smile.
“Kind of, but I don’t see the point of doing this,” Agatha said, she felt that knowing whether the semi-demigods sent by the circle were Lich or not was of no value unless we were able to defeat them or at the least successfully retreat.
